I did the hip compression too when I got mine earlier today. It was hard to tell when I did it enough(and the end of the spring still hurt a bit after a bit of doing it) but seemed to work fine. Also seemed very tail-heavy when I worked on getting him to stand angled instead of upright

Sad to say, I'll likely be picking up The Last Knight this week. If nothing else, it should look fantastic on 4K Blu-Ray, and my 4K OLED is still new enough I'm willing to watch things I hate if they look stunning

Sometime last week, I purchased Hasbro Windblade online then a day or two later, Takara Windblade was announced for only £4.99 more making me instantly regret buying Hasbro's Windblade. Guess I'll be giving Hasbro Windblade to my nephew for Christmas then.

You could always have the "ghost" possess someone in the party or an NPC and bump them with the party out of gratitude (or a need to figure out the rest of their pre-life). I'm honestly unfamiliar enough with 3.5/PF to not have much mechanical advice.

Alternatively, appeal to the Raven Queen (or other death/magic deity) to restore the sorcerer to some semblance of life.

Clearing out some old TFs and Mugenbine in my BST Thread. You know you want some of these.

There's the ghost-specific classes in the Ghostwalk setting book, which was the last 3.0 book and had an official conversion guide online, but I don't know if those would actually be more useful than just applying the ghost template and letting him carry the staff, since I don't have the book.

So, I just bought a 4E starter set and found a character sheet maker. Right now I've got four characters - a 22-year-old Human Knight named Clarent, a 24-year-old Half-Elf Thief named Sa'har, a 23-year-old Razorclaw Shifter Ranger (Beastmaster build) named Kaya, and a very, very old Warforged Monk named Ferrus Pax. Until I found a group, I'm mostly gonna use them to write my own stories, but when I find a group - any suggestions on stat distributions/feats/abilities/weapons to them, or class changes if the need arises?

So, I just bought a 4E starter set and found a character sheet maker. Right now I've got four characters - a 22-year-old Human Knight named Clarent, a 24-year-old Half-Elf Thief named Sa'har, a 23-year-old Razorclaw Shifter Ranger (Beastmaster build) named Kaya, and a very, very old Warforged Monk named Ferrus Pax. Until I found a group, I'm mostly gonna use them to write my own stories, but when I find a group - any suggestions on stat distributions/feats/abilities/weapons to them, or class changes if the need arises?

Lemme take a looksie. Well, first off, you'll need a Leader (Healer) for the party. I'm personally a huge fan of the Artificer class (from Eberron Player's Guide), or the old reliable Cleric/Warpriest. You can get by without one, but they are immensely helpful.

General Feats Tips: Each player is going to want to pick up an Expertise Feat. These are scattered all over the newer Essentials books and the Heroes of the ___ books. They all give a scaling +1/2/3 to attack per tier with a specific implement or weapon as well as a useful bonus.

Assuming you are starting at level 1Clarent - Buff Str (20 including Racial +2), then Con and Wis in equal parts. You can live with an 8 in Cha or Int if you have to. Pick up Heavy Armor Agility to get remove the speed penalty and an expertise based on your weapon of choice (Heavy Blade for swords, Bludgeoning for hammers, etc)

Sa'har - Buff Dex, Dex, and Dex. Throw some points at Cha and Con as you can. Light blade Expertise is the go-to for melee, or Bow/Crossbow/etc for ranged weapons are out there. Never under estimate the power of thrown daggers (Magical ones come back to your hand). Also, pick up the Quick Draw feat, which will speed you up in combat.

Kaya - A word of Warning, Beastmasters are complex and difficult to optimize. But build Str for Melee or Dex for ranged and pick powers accordingly. Not too much feat advice per se, but check into the Beast Protector Feat to help keep your beast alive. ~~The Sentinel Class (A druid variant) from the Essentials books operates similarly to a Beast Master, but also has some healing capabilities. It's a simpler class like the Knight and operates mainly as a melee attack with a light weight heal. As written, they are limited to a Wolf and a Bear pet (and later this month, they get an elemental option), but that can be refluffed to be almost anything.

Ferrus Pax - Ahh, the Warforged Monk, Good pick. You'll want to take the racial buff to Str, but remember to build primarily for Dex, then Str or Con depending on the specific sub-build you select (Iron Fist seems appropriate). Ki-Focus expertise is your go-to first feat, but everything else is based on what kind of combat you want to partake in (There's a weapon user sub-type, a more ninja style monk, and ones to make your bare fist a superior weapon). As a monk you won't qualify for many of the warforged exclusive gear pieces (attached/embedded items usually for heavy armor and big weapons), but they can still get a few snazzy ones.

For other help, the Character Optimization official forum can give you a lot of insight and ideas. Here's their main thread to jump to a specific class as you need it:http://community.wiz...ter_Build_Links

Clearing out some old TFs and Mugenbine in my BST Thread. You know you want some of these.

So, I just bought a 4E starter set and found a character sheet maker. Right now I've got four characters - a 22-year-old Human Knight named Clarent, a 24-year-old Half-Elf Thief named Sa'har, a 23-year-old Razorclaw Shifter Ranger (Beastmaster build) named Kaya, and a very, very old Warforged Monk named Ferrus Pax. Until I found a group, I'm mostly gonna use them to write my own stories, but when I find a group - any suggestions on stat distributions/feats/abilities/weapons to them, or class changes if the need arises?

Lemme take a looksie. Well, first off, you'll need a Leader (Healer) for the party. I'm personally a huge fan of the Artificer class (from Eberron Player's Guide), or the old reliable Cleric/Warpriest. You can get by without one, but they are immensely helpful.

General Feats Tips: Each player is going to want to pick up an Expertise Feat. These are scattered all over the newer Essentials books and the Heroes of the ___ books. They all give a scaling +1/2/3 to attack per tier with a specific implement or weapon as well as a useful bonus.

Assuming you are starting at level 1Clarent - Buff Str (20 including Racial +2), then Con and Wis in equal parts. You can live with an 8 in Cha or Int if you have to. Pick up Heavy Armor Agility to get remove the speed penalty and an expertise based on your weapon of choice (Heavy Blade for swords, Bludgeoning for hammers, etc)

Sa'har - Buff Dex, Dex, and Dex. Throw some points at Cha and Con as you can. Light blade Expertise is the go-to for melee, or Bow/Crossbow/etc for ranged weapons are out there. Never under estimate the power of thrown daggers (Magical ones come back to your hand). Also, pick up the Quick Draw feat, which will speed you up in combat.

Kaya - A word of Warning, Beastmasters are complex and difficult to optimize. But build Str for Melee or Dex for ranged and pick powers accordingly. Not too much feat advice per se, but check into the Beast Protector Feat to help keep your beast alive. ~~The Sentinel Class (A druid variant) from the Essentials books operates similarly to a Beast Master, but also has some healing capabilities. It's a simpler class like the Knight and operates mainly as a melee attack with a light weight heal. As written, they are limited to a Wolf and a Bear pet (and later this month, they get an elemental option), but that can be refluffed to be almost anything.

Ferrus Pax - Ahh, the Warforged Monk, Good pick. You'll want to take the racial buff to Str, but remember to build primarily for Dex, then Str or Con depending on the specific sub-build you select (Iron Fist seems appropriate). Ki-Focus expertise is your go-to first feat, but everything else is based on what kind of combat you want to partake in (There's a weapon user sub-type, a more ninja style monk, and ones to make your bare fist a superior weapon). As a monk you won't qualify for many of the warforged exclusive gear pieces (attached/embedded items usually for heavy armor and big weapons), but they can still get a few snazzy ones.

For other help, the Character Optimization official forum can give you a lot of insight and ideas. Here's their main thread to jump to a specific class as you need it:http://community.wiz...ter_Build_Links

Vest, these are all my characters - so they aren't a party, it's just so I have four I can write my own stories about. I'll main one for a while, and I think I'm leaning towards maining Kaya or Ferrus. I am definitely gonna retool their current stats, which is good 'cuz I've never played a game with them yet.

I also think I'll make Kaya an Artificer, though. I do need a healer, and I don't want to go with the traditional Cleric.

A part of me is sorely tempted to make 3 recurring Gnoll NPCs who just cause trouble for everyone else named Zhensi, Ibazan and Ward.

Also, I think I'll main Kaya because Ferrus and Clarent's sheets didn't come out right on the one I'm using.

I've also changed Sahar to a Tiefling, although he looks more like the 3E Tieflings in my head - I like the 4E Tiefling designs, but they don't really work for a guy who tires to passhimself off as human, so he's more like Annah from Planescape as a dude in his Tiefling traits. Oh, and his tail was cut off by his father when he was a baby so that he could pass as a normal human - it's kind of like how Leela's parents left her in the Orphanarium since she could pass as an alien. They wanted him to have a better life than they did, basically. His backstory's kind of depressing if you think about it.

Also, I figured out why Ferrus' sheet didn't come out right, but I had to retool Clarent into a Fighter. Now they're ALL playable!

Tiefs in 4e run the gamut of Almost human with a tiny tail and horns to full on devil, human skin tones to deep reds. Lotta wiggle in there. My main is Clavis, a Tiefling Illusionist Mage

We wrapped up our delve (at 2 am last night, fml), but it was a heck of a run. Our party was:Ryoko - Revenant Sorceress (Storm, Genasi Soul, me)Multani - Wilden Battlemind (My brother sure does love tanking)Ordo - Human Hunter (A returning regular for our group)Nos - Vryloka Beast Master Ranger (Giant raven pet)Bri'a - Hengeyokai Sparrow Bard (A new player, and this will sadly be her only game as she is moving away )

We had 7 kinds of insane fun, including an epic moment where I had had enough of a particular trap, so I shot the hug out of it with lightning causing the hunter to book it at his maximum speed (20 squares~) away from the area. We had a good mix of RP and action and some creative skill usage, which always makes things more fun for everyone (Except for the "GO-Guy")

The Delve was most excellent, and our DM is planning to submit it to Wizards.

Clearing out some old TFs and Mugenbine in my BST Thread. You know you want some of these.

Oh, so Tiefs still have all the vriety? I thought that they all looked like they do in the usual 4E art. I guess those are Tiefs who are either full-blooded Tiefs or have a fiend parent - Sa'har's waaaaay down the line and has a full-blooded human parent, so he's had a lot of the fiend traits removed, either through them not passing on to him, or in the case of his tail, it being cut off at birth because his parents wanted him to be able to live as a human... Aside from that aura of uneasiness people get around him. No way around that.

I decided to change Sa'har back to being a Half-Elf, because in 4E, apparently all Tieflings DO have to have horns and tails. That's kinda stupid, and makes it less possible to make a convincing charmer-type character when they all look like the spawn of Asmodeus.

So basically, his final backstory is his dad is a deadbeat elf, his deceased mom was from Zakhara, and he's been a thief in a big city based on the Eberron setting/Republic City from the Legend of Korra since he was about nine. He's still been buddies with Clarent since they were kids, and since Clarent's now a fighter (why would he keep his ranking as a knight if he was drummed out), the two of them aren't on opposite sides of the law anymore.

I decided to change Sa'har back to being a Half-Elf, because in 4E, apparently all Tieflings DO have to have horns and tails. That's kinda stupid, and makes it less possible to make a convincing charmer-type character when they all look like the spawn of Asmodeus.

Why must your setting be so racist? I figure horned and tailed* people are common enough for one to easily be a charmer!

I decided to change Sa'har back to being a Half-Elf, because in 4E, apparently all Tieflings DO have to have horns and tails. That's kinda stupid, and makes it less possible to make a convincing charmer-type character when they all look like the spawn of Asmodeus.

Why must your setting be so racist? I figure horned and tailed* people are common enough for one to easily be a charmer!

*Dragonborn need to have these >:-(

It isn't the tail, it's the fact that Tieflings are demonspawn that makes the commoners gran the torches and pitchforks. I do kind of want to make a Tiefling swashbuckler who can teleport around at some point, though...

Yea, 4e Tiefs are of human decent. Corrupted humans mind you, but still human stock over all. how big the horns and tail are vary a lot. Clavis' father, Ferox Roaringrim had a huge pair of antler sized horns, but his mother was (mostly) human.

Clearing out some old TFs and Mugenbine in my BST Thread. You know you want some of these.

Well, I decided to have Sa'har be a Tief. He doesn't need to pass for human, since he grew up in the slums. Poor guy's spent almost his whole life on his own.

I'm also made a Dragonborn Slayer named Muo Lung whose personality I lovingly ripped off from BW Dinobot (his name is one of Dinobot's Chinese names), and a Drow (GASP) Healic named Arana who was left to die on the surface by her father because she isn't a full-blooded Drow. Fortunately, an older cleric of the Raven Queen took her in and raised her as his own.

Normally, I dislike Drow as player characters, since they're usually Drizz't wannabes, but I decided I'd make mine a "what if a Drow never even knew of the rest of her race and thought she was just a strange elf?" type dealie. Kind of a "raised by people who aren't psychos" way and make her more of a Neutral Good character.

I find a lot of my characters lean towards the old definition of Neutral Good.

I'm still maining Kaya, but I decided I'd create these two of the need arises.